Crisis Intervention: How the Police and the Community deal with Mental Illness

If someone with a mental illness is threatening to kill himself, Metro's CIT is called. That's the police department's Crisis Intervention Team. The officers are trained to identify those with mental illness and handle situations ranging from a homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk to a man threatening to jump off a building. So how do we deal with mental illness locally? How do the police identify mental illness and keep things from escalating into a dangerous situation? Up in Reno, local police and social workers team up to patrol the streets. Would that system work here? And what happens to all these programs after the budget cuts?

GUESTS

Patrick O'Bryan, retired officer, Reno Police Department

Sue Gaines, Pres, local affiliate of National Alliance on Mental Illness